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Traditions: Sound Effect, Episode 50

Matthew Streib
The grave of Yip Sang

Sound Effect is your weekly tour of ideas inspired by the place we live. The show is hosted by the wonderful Gabriel Spitzer. This week the Sound Effect team explores traditions and takes a look at some lesser-known and long-held practices.

KPLU’s Jennifer Wing takes us on a tour of the history of the Holiday Cotillion of Tacoma and finds that the tradition started in the winter of 1961 because of a call from a NBC producer.

Just one year after the Holiday Cotillion of Tacoma launched, KING-FM started broadcasting the service of the Compline Choir each and every Sunday. Gabriel Spitzer headed out there, mic in hand to learn more about this long standing tradition and the audience that attends.

Our next tradition kicks of in the 70s and is a mixture of science, art, fog and music - welcome to the laser show. KPLU’s Warren Langford heads over to the Seattle Science Center to talk about the one show that never leaves the line-up, "Laser Floyd.”

It would make sense to then have a story of a tradition from the 80s and we do — the 1880s. Well, around that era at least. Maurice Guibord is a vice president of the British Columbia Historical Federation and a researcher on cemeteries and he explained to KPLU's Matthew Streib the complicated relationship that Chinese immigrants had with cemeteries and access in the 1800s.